Comments on: People are heavier than in the 1980s, but we have no idea why

By: huxley

huxley — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 05:09:34 +0000

Most prescription drugs (and other drugs) have no calories.

Steve D: Well, you made me laugh. Although I expect you’re serious.

By: Steve D

Steve D — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 02:02:08 +0000

‘In other words, people today are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 1980s, even if they follow the exact same diet and exercise plans.’

This should state:

In other words, people today are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 1980s, even if they say they follow the exact same diet and exercise plans.

By: Steve D

Steve D — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 01:55:41 +0000

‘more people take prescription drugs that foster weight gain’

Most prescription drugs (and other drugs) have no calories.

By: huxley

huxley — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 23:16:24 +0000

In addition to cigarettes, I believe people also took more stimulant drugs — amphetamines, methamphetamines and cocaine — in the past. Which are classic drugs for losing weight among other things. Until the 1970s it was fairly easy to get speed in the form of diet pills.

I suspect those would be secondary causes, but factors worth putting in the spreadsheet.

By: Eworth

Eworth — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 21:20:27 +0000

Agree on the antidepressants/low fat/high carbs as insulin triggers (would also add more sugar and soy even in foods of comparable calories), but don’t ignore the birth control pills either. I believe, anecdotally, that not only do they trigger weight gain, but being on them for years also resets your receptors, which is why bra sizes have also been markedly increasing as well. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4443166/Average-breast-size-increases-three-cup-sizes-50-years.html.

By: aNanyMouse

aNanyMouse — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 04:05:59 +0000

Spot on, Snow. Esp. after Carter got smoked by double-digit inflation and unemployment.
Not just the gov’t, but the gov’t-supported outfits (esp. Wall St.), which gov’t allows to cook books.
SarbOx was supposed to cure that problem, but it didn’t stop Bear, Lehmann, etc. from going belly.
So instead, the Obama gov’t (thru House wheel Kanjorski) stopped the FASB from enforcing mark-to-market accounting, long enough for the markets to recover “stability” (probably mostly thru bailout $$).
For a list of folks who’ve written well about such stuff, see
https://monoki.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/Ten-killer-Financial-Bloggers/ .

By: Snow on Pine

Snow on Pine — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 03:07:07 +0000

aNanyMouse–There is always incompetence as an excuse.

But yeah, once you see the evidence that high level members of our government are doing all sorts of unethical and illegal things–using all the tools and force of government and law to persecute and harass their opponents, doing things like altering documents, spying on and trying to entrap their enemies, and laying false prosecutions against them well, then, its no too far a leap to start wondering what other kinds of things might also have been altered, and whether some of the statistics that that same government is publishing are not really reflecting reality, but have also been altered to give a false impression.

By: aNanyMouse

aNanyMouse — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:58:12 +0000

“actual production and employment statistics.”
From whom? Our ever-so trusted gov’t?

To say the very least, some emphatically anti-goldbuggers (e.g. Nouriel Roubini) express suspicion, that whatever “growth” we’ve had in recent decades has been completely bought with utterly unpayable debt, which will in due course bring (at very best) a repeat of the ’08 crisis (which only very few, incl. Roubini, foresaw).

So many of your comments here (e.g. on SJWs) are quite worth seeing.
I must urge you to stay w/ in your wheelhouses.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 23:59:38 +0000

On money, see

Yeah, I’m sure we have much to learn from goldbuggerers who maintain that it’s beneath them to consult actual production and employment statistics.

By: aNanyMouse

aNanyMouse — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 23:41:41 +0000

Re Kate, on “relentlessly pushing a low-fat diet for the past forty years”.
No sh*t!
See Ian Leslie, at http://www.theGuardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-Sugar-Conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin .

Moreover, TPTB have been pushing BS in virtually every major aspect of life, for at least 40 years.
On money, see https://FreegoldSpeakeasy.com/2019/11/23/Hyperinflationll-fix-that/ , where blogger FOFOA argues that the Volcker 1980 reshuffle of the int’l money system only bought some time, before more profound changes must emerge, esp. to the moribund $-dominated IMF system:

“… I say the $IMFS caused “Ponzi Capitalism,” which ultimately resulted in global stagnation, which is not “the end” of growth, but more of a pause. But let me be clear that, what he (commenter Marion) is characterizing as “Capitalism” is not real capitalism, and it is not the end result of capitalism, as the term “Late Capitalism” implies. What it is, is “late stage $IMFS”, which is quite different from the concept of capitalism….”